Season 1, Episode 5
God created you to believe Him, to know Him, and to love Him.
He also created you to live fearlessly!
Jesus came into this world, not only so that we could be forgiven for our sins and live with Him forever, but also to make us sons of God.
The entire New Testament, from the Gospels to the Revelation, presents us with this amazing truth – that those who believe in Jesus are chosen and called by God to live for Him in this world, just as Jesus did.
Think what that means!
We know that God is not afraid of anything. But neither was Jesus, who laid aside the advantage of being God to live as a man in this world. And as that man, He lived in a perfect relationship with God. He walked this Earth fearlessly, not because He was big and strong, not because He had an answer for everything, not because He was some kind of superhero. But because He lived in love with His Father.
“There is no fear in love, because perfect love drives out fear.” Those words are not a slogan. They are the truth!
If you are searching for ways to cope with your fears – struggling to rise above them and desperately grasping at anything that might protect you from being pushed around by them – your quest will be fruitless … and endless! But if you will take your eyes off your fears and, instead, abandon yourself in love to God, you will discover the power of perfect love.
To love perfectly is to love completely, and to love completely is to give yourself unreservedly to the one you love. Not because you have to, but because you choose to.
Which brings us to something fundamental to God’s command to love Him and to love one another: love is an act of will! It is not merely an emotion or some sort of feeling, as we are often led to believe. Nor is it something you conjure up to get what you want.
True love, genuine love, godly love – is your pure expression of your choice to give yourself to another.
Try reading 1 Corinthians 13 – the well-known ‘love chapter’ –– and each time you come to the word ‘love,’ replace it with ‘giving yourself’ or ‘the giving of self,’ and you will see what I mean.
Because this love is all about giving, it can never be about getting. Which, of course, highlights the fundamental difference between love and lust, because lust is always about getting … even when disguised as love.
So, to give yourself to God completely, is to love Him perfectly. If you do that, and keep on doing it, you will be amazed at how free you are of any concern or anxiety for yourself!
God calls us to live in love and to walk by faith, and we cannot live in relationship with Him unless we believe He is who He says He is.
The words of Hebrews 11:6 are categorical: “…without faith, it is impossible to please God”. Faith knows – not by what our eyes see or our minds understand, but by something far deeper.
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for,” taking you into a realm of existence where you could not otherwise go. Not some hopeful or wishful place, but something of real substance where you see and know things that are not ‘natural’ to you – yet by faith they become starkly real.
When you live in a love relationship with God – giving yourself freely to Him – you discover the beauty of that perfect love … and its effect. So that things which once pushed you around no longer do so, and things you once feared no longer make you afraid. Even though they are still there and have the same potential.
Just look at Jesus as His earthly life and ministry steadily approached their climax. He knew what was coming and that His situation was about to become increasingly threatening and unbearably painful … all the way to the excruciating agony of crucifixion. Yet He still moved relentlessly forward.
Yes, it’s true that, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed : “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me;” – but He then went on to say: “… nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Jesus chose to submit Himself to His Father’s will, rather than submitting to fear and self-preservation. Not because He was exceptionally courageous, but because He had chosen to make His life solely about what mattered to His Father.
“Do not be anxious about anything,” wrote the Apostle Paul. But is that really possible? How can we not be anxious when there are so many things in life to be anxious about?
If you have submitted your life to God, and you truly believe that He is who He says He is, then not only have you acknowledged Him as God Almighty, the Creator of the Universe – but also as your God who gave up His own Son to make you His own. Not a mere slave. Not even a faithful follower. But a son. Which makes Him your Father!
There is no way you can believe what God says about Himself, without also believing what He says about you. And if you believe what He says about you. Isn’t it ridiculous to try and be in control of your own life … when you have such a wonderful God who has given everything to make you His own son?
Paul also wrote: “…He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” Did you get that? All things! This is God’s ‘total-care package’ for those who belong to Him!
Every one of us experiences human weaknesses and characteristics, but Jesus came to personally identify with those very things. Not only to show us the way, but also to make the way for each of us to live as He lived. Which means not merely trying to disregard our fears and anxieties, but living beyond them. Without which you will continue being driven by your fears.
It's plain to see how the world around us is driven by fear – on all sides and in so many ways. Fear rages within people and fears threaten them from without. Fear invades their personal world and dominates the world at large.
By their very nature those fears loom ever larger, as people constantly try to make sense of a world created by God without coming to terms with the God who created it – and seek to make sense of being human, while rejecting the God who created us in His own image.
But let it not be so for you! If you believe God is who He says He is, then you must also go all the way in believing everything He says … not only about Himself, but also about you.
Some will caution you, saying: “Don’t go overboard.” … “You have to be realistic.” … “You must keep your feet on the ground.” But if you know God for who He is, and your only desire is to do His will – He will speak to you in that voice you can hear and in that language you can understand. And when that happens, the next step will always be yours to take, because whenever God speaks to us He awaits our response.
How different that is from today’s increasingly ‘me’-centred society, where self-focus is promoted – together with philosophies and practices such as meditation, ‘going into yourself,’ ‘centring yourself,’ and ‘finding yourself,’ are cultivated. All of which make you, not God, the focus of your life – to the point where self-focus becomes self-worship.
In contrast, what I am talking about here has nothing to do with self-focus, and everything to do with your choice to place God at the centre of your life. Then, with your life securely in His hands, you are free to live, not for yourself, but for Him!
How sad it is when those who claim to be God’s people are riven with the same anxieties and driven by the same anxious urge to be in control of their lives, as those who are not His people. How can God be glorified in the lives of Christians who continue to be absorbed with providing for themselves, are worn down by the same anxieties, cling to the same values, and live within the same limitations, as those who do not claim Him as their God?
Yet, those same Christians are prone to put Jesus on a pedestal and hero-worship ‘saints’ and other godly people – all of whom (Jesus included), were no different to any one of us. Their only greatness lay in the simple fact that they lived, not for themselves, but for God ... just as we are called to live.
If you freely respond to God without fearing where that might lead, you will soon discover how much He loves to honour those who honour Him.
When Jesus came into this world, He said to His Father: “I come to do your will, O God”. Then, as He lived out that commitment, day-after-day and moment-by-moment, He always knew what His Father wanted Him to say and do, and could truly claim: “I only speak My Father’s words … I only do my Father’s works!”
Make it your choice to live like that, and no fear can push you around or set limits on your life. How much better it is to be motivated by love for God than to be driven by fear!
As God’s people, our lives should be marked by faith, hope and love. Not by anxiety and struggles with our human limitations… and never by complaints about anything that hinders you from getting what you want out of life!
Jesus promised that, if you seek God’s Kingdom and His righteousness above everything else, God Himself will provide for all your earthly needs … so that you are free to get on with living for Him.
Belonging to God and knowing Him intimately is either the most wonderful existence in all of Creation, or it is nothing … a sham.
It cannot be something in-between.